Trash Day Mutterings

 

2/23/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

It was 31 degrees and overcast on trash day. I had no intention of sketching outdoors, but on my way home from an appointment, I pulled over in the neighborhood to make this sketch from my car. Here are a few things I muttered about to myself that day:

Values: When I scanned the image (below), I realized that my darkest values were a bit wimpy. After those experiments in January, I had sort of forgotten about using a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pen as a color-based “grisaille,” which I think would have helped this composition without strong lighting or shadows. But it wasn’t too late: I got out a dark violet Pitt pen and darkened a few spots in the sketch, and I think it’s better now (top of post). I have to remember to use it when I need to.

Wimpy values (without the Pitt pen).

Sketchbook size: I’ve made only a few sketches in it so far, but my new A6 Hahnemühle sketchbook is giving me a lot more freedom to use color spontaneously because it stays with me in my small fitness-walking Rickshaw bag. I tend to take the small bag almost everywhere now, not just on walks, because it’s so much lighter and slimmer than my long-time daily-carry larger Rickshaw. In other words, my fitness-walking bag has become my daily-carry.

The only times I still use my larger Rickshaw are when I plan to use my A5 Hahnemühle sketchbook. If it weren’t for that, I probably would have switched to the smaller bag full-time long ago. I’ve enjoyed using the A6 book enough so far that I’ve started wondering if it could become my full-time sketchbook? An A6 page spread opens to the size of an A5 when I want more space (though I’d have to contend with the gutter, which I don’t enjoy doing).

A6 vs. A5: Can I stand the smaller real estate full-time?

Whoa, switching full-time to a pocket-size sketchbook would be quite a shift for me. I guess the only way to find out is to carry only the small A6 the next time I think I would prefer my larger A5 and see how it goes.